The present invention relates to an apparatus for separating the pulp of a ripe avocado from the skin and the seed automatically and the method thereof. The handling of a ripe avocado by parts and components of automatically operating equipments is very difficult because the fruit is externally very soft, but contains a centrally-located large and hard seed. Both methods and machineries commonly used for processing other fruits such as pears and drupes are unsuitable for ripe avocado processing. The pulp supporting the skin is much too soft and the seed is much too large and hard. Even when the skin is removed, the external surface of the pulp is then much too slippery for practical handling by means other than human hands.
The nature of the avocado fruit is such that the pulp is edible and tasty only when the fruit has reached the degree of ripening which gives the pulp its oil content and attendant consistency. Also, the ripening process cannot take place unless the avocado is picked from the tree still hard, with a minimum content of fatty materials, high enough to insure the maturing completion, but low enough to insure that the proper ripening is going to occur by means of chemicals generated by the seed after the fruit is separated from the tree. The natural ripening process can be slowed down by keeping the fruit at low temperatures above freezing. When the fruit is left at room temperature, either after being picked or taken out of cold storage, it will generally ripen after a few days, if it already contains a percentage of fatty materials. The minimum of such percentage is actually fixed by law. If this minimum percentage is not reached before the fruit is picked, the completion of the maturing does not take place. The fruit shrivels, remains hard and is useless. Therefore, unless the pulp is extracted at the right stage of ripening, it has no commercial value. This degree of ripening lasts only for a few days. Henceforth, the fruit spoils quickly.
In any event, the manual extraction of the pulp of a ripe avocado is often messy and frustrating, unless done expertly. The marketing of avocados on a large commercial scale has been rendered difficult because of the handling problems inherent to the ripening process. However, many culinary applications need only avocado pulp paste as main ingredient, such as the well-known guacamole. The pasty pulp, once extracted from the fruit, can be frozen for shipping and storage. Seasoning can be added before the freezing step or after thawing, prior to preparing the dish. To render the raw avocado paste inexpensive, the extraction of the pulp from the ripe fruits must be made automatic and reliable by machine. The goals of the present invention are to provide an apparatus and a method which offer such possibilities, by minimizing the need for manual labor.